"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell." -- Molly Ivins

Saturday, October 28

Medicine, Health Coverage, etc.

There's a medication I have to take for my diabetes which costs me just under $200/month. I got a refill of it four days ago and last night I managed to lose it. (I left it -on- the car before driving off. Oops).

Now, this is totally my mistake, and I'm perfectly willing to pay the extra $200 to get a new dosage of it. I don't -like- the idea of doing this, but hey, sometimes we make stupid mistakes and sometimes we make stupid expensive mistakes.

But this morning, I was thinking about it-- my insurance company might cover that $200, but they might not. I can't find out until Monday (I see no indication anywhere that they have an emergency line) and I need to get the prescription refilled a.s.a.p.

Furthermore, the way my insurance company works is that I pay in advance for the prescription and they reimburse me.

That said, I am one of the fortunate people who can afford to make a $200 mistake and have it just ruin a weekend for me, and not have it be a choice between medicine and food (or rent, electricity, heat, etc.).

But it got me thinking-- what exactly would this mean in terms of my well-being if I weren't in that situation? If I didn't have the resources to take care of this relatively easily, this would not just be a frustration and an inconvenience, this could be life-threatening. What if this were heart medication? The risk I have right now is that my blood sugar will spike, and I'll feel like crap for a couple days, and I'll get it back under control again. If I were in a worse circumstance here, this would be a major deal for me.

What does this mean for people who are poor and have chronic medical conditions? What does this mean for people who are poor and have short-term medical conditions that they don't treat because the antibiotics are too expensive? Do we, as a society, simply accept this?

What if they use the antibiotics for a time, but stop them early because they can't afford the refill? From a medical standpoint, this is quite the problem for one simple reason: it helps create a new, stronger, strain of the disease: one which more easily resists antibiotics, creating potential superstrains?